Gordon Brown has had a good week. No, let me rephrase. Like a balloonist in a balloon race who, dipping perilously towards the waves, achieves a saving burst of uplift by jettisoning his maps and blasting fire from the gas canister marked “Final Reserve”, Mr Brown has escaped. Even recovered. At least he’s still airborne.
David Cameron has had a bad week. No, let me rephrase that too. In the sense that the balloonist who leads the race but sees his deadly rival lifting himself back into contention may be said to have had a bad week, Mr Cameron has had a bad week. He has always insisted publicly that victory wasn’t in the bag, and we’ve been inclined to laugh. We still suspect victory’s in the bag, but the laughing has stopped.
This has been an important week at a critical point. Critical because Christmas, the new year and the stupefying holiday season into which they plunge us will shortly be crowding politics towards the margins of national attention for more than a month; and by the time we are settling into the rhythm of a new year in 2010, what feels almost like an unofficial general election campaign will be under way.
Labour MPs could have set about writing their Christmas cards to constituents this weekend, convinced that the game was up and trying not to think about politics over the festive season. They could have returned to their parliamentary duties on Tuesday, January 5, despondent and waiting for the end. That will not now be their mood. They believe a hung Parliament might, after all, be within their grasp, with all the excitements that brings. They believe that there is much — if not quite victory — still to play for. A score or more who this summer saw no prospect of holding on to their seats may think again that it’s worth the fight.
Politics the other side of Christmas should start with an unchallenged Gordon Brown doggedly in position at the head of a fierce campaign; with a Labour poll rating that has firmed up sufficiently to end all talk of disintegration; with a Tory lead that’s still substantial, but not — not quite — comfortable; and with David Cameron’s confidence nagged if not punctured by a nervy sense that for the Tories it could all, still, just, go wrong. That’s the political snapshot that December 2009 places in the country’s mind; and the snapshot we’ll probably still be holding when everyone comes back in January.
And that’s good. Good for both sides. I watched Prime Minister’s Questions this Wednesday and could see at once the new tactics that — with or without Alastair Campbell’s help — Mr Brown has now decided upon. The PM entered the chamber with a mental prompt-card containing three bullet points:
Non-doms
Playing fields of Eton
Inheritance tax
Within the space of two answers — and only by raising the subject himself — Brown managed to steer the exchanges on to all three. The tactic is plain. It is the dividing-line tactic he tried in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election: class division. Brown wants to paint the Tories as toffs serving the interests of toffs; the rich and privileged governing for the rich and privileged.
There will be commentary this weekend suggesting that to fall back on class warfare is for Labour a desperate core strategy. So it is. But it may be a necessary strategy, and to a limited degree could prove a successful one. I wrote in the wake of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election that just because Labour’s campaign there (involving idiots in top hats) had been crude and counter-productive, we should not write the tactic off. The British public do not like vested interests, either of a class or a financial kind, and are permanently suspicious of their concealed presence in politics.
Labour remains vulnerable to any hint that they are in the pockets of the trade unions. An Opposition whose policy is to keep down taxes and cut spending on public services, and whose voters and MPs tend to come from the top rather than the bottom half of society, is, equally, vulnerable to being called self-serving.
In the purely Machiavellian sense I think Labour are right to choose the path they took this week. If they are honest with themselves they’ll know they are bankrupt of interesting new ideas, that banging on about the achievements of the past is fruitless in a recession, and that talking about the necessity for spending cuts plays to the Tory agenda.
Meanwhile, they have been haemorrhaging support from all around their core. In an emergency you shore up the core. Toff-bashing and accusations of pocket-lining are a potent means of doing so. There may be another few points in the opinion polls that can be pulled back this way.
So you may think me perverse when I go on to say that the worst thing for the Conservative Party to do now would be to worry about Labour’s new line of attack and look for eye-catching ways to rebut it. When your enemy retreats on to his safest ground you should not yourself become prickly or defensive. Voters are tolerant of George Osborne’s and David Cameron’s ambition to abolish inheritance tax, not because most voters expect to pay it but because the aspiration signals that this is a party that’s on the side of people who work hard and want to keep more of what they earn. This is the party’s unique selling point. The care-and- compassion stuff, vital though it is, is a me-too pitch.
As we head out of the old year and towards the new, the Tories need to maintain a cool head, a steady nerve and good manners in all their public conversation. Brown is a rude individual who is at his most effective when cornered and angry. Class attack is an inherently discourteous and unpleasant way of conducting yourself. Voters and the news media already have an image fixed of the viciousness and spite that he and those around him show to enemies both within and outside their party. Accurately or otherwise, meanwhile, Mr Cameron is thought of as personally agreeable, kind and courteous; and very, very calm.
He must play to this. Nothing would be more counter-productive than to react to class-based attacks by ditching policies, or by going pink in the face and shouting ad hominems (in an upper-class accent) back.
Confidence, steady rationality and the good manners that can come with both should be what we take from the Tory performance this winter.
Matthew Parris will be at Waterstone’s Piccadilly on Thursday, December 10, as part of The Times Festive Miscellany. To meet him and other Times authors call Waterstone’s on 020 7851 2419 to book your place.
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Matthew Parris joined The Times as parliamentary sketchwriter in 1988, a role he held until 2001. He had formerly worked for the Foreign Office and been a Conservative MP from 1979-86. He has published many books on travel and politics and an autobiography, Chance Witness. In 2005 he won the Orwell Prize for Journalism. His diary appears in The Times on Thursdays, and his Opinion column on Saturdays
The Editor of the TLS writes on books, people and politics
Mary Beard of Cambridge and the TLS on culture ancient and modern
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